Avenged Sevenfold’s M. Shadows Denounces Warner’s ‘Greatest Hits’ Album as ‘Childish on a Whole New Level’

Avenged Sevenfold seem to have had the last laugh in the album release battle against former record label Warner. In a new interview, vocalist M. Shadows shared his disappointment with Warner’s attempt to undercut Avenged’s new album sales, calling the move “childish on a whole new level.”

Not long after Chris Jericho threw everyone off with his fake A7X album details leak, Warner announced the release of an Avenged Sevenfold greatest hits album. Jericho made the world believe Avenged’s new album would drop on Dec. 9 (the band ended up unleashing The Stage on Oct. 28 in a surprise release), and Shadows believes Warner used that information to schedule The Best of 2005-2013 for a Dec. 2 release.

While speaking with 101.1 WJRR, Shadows analyzed the situation. "No, we're not promoting [the greatest hits album] at all. That has nothing to do with us. They, basically, saw the date that Chris [Jericho] put up, and, from what we understand, they are trying to undercut our new record, so they were trying to put it out the week before,” Shadows said. “And as childish as things can be behind the scenes with lawyers and stuff, as I'm sure you can imagine, this is childish on a whole new level.”

Shadows continued, “You're gonna try to put this record out right before our new record just to undercut us and try to confuse the casual fan, like, 'Is this the new record? Or is that the new record?' Or parents buying stuff for Christmas. So it's just really childish. It doesn't even have a good pick of songs. It's just kind of, like… It is what it is. And it's a record label, basically, digging themselves into a deeper hole, as far as I'm concerned, 'cause it doesn't look good to other bands who are potentially gonna sign there, and it doesn't look good to fans."

Avenged Sevenfold's new album, The Stage, reached No. 4 on the Billboard 200 in its debut week and the band will embark on a European tour in January as they begin to support the record on the road. Direct support will come from rock titans Disturbed and all tour dates can be found at the A7X Facebook page.

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